The Adventure is Underway

It’s been a little while since I updated this blog about my project, but things have been moving along so well!  I find that I am enjoying my time at the 1917 Clinic so much, and I am learning a great deal from sifting through doctor’s notes and patient’s charts.  When I first started nursing school, a bit of me was a little sad that I wouldn’t really get the chance to experience paper charts because of technology, but I don’t know what I was thinking!  I am so grateful for technology, as well as not having to always decipher the handwriting of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals!

So, the project—first, I didn’t mention in my first post that this project was actually inherited!  It was started during this past summer by a girl named Lauren Lanehart who is a semester ahead of me in nursing school.  She first communicated with the clinic and got the service learning project set up, and so a lot of what I am doing is all a matter of following in her footsteps.

So what exactly have I been doing?  Every Friday when the schedule is printed for the next week, I come into the office and get a hold of it!  I sort through all of the patients using the clinic’s electronic records, and I determine which of the female patients need to have their GYN services performed.   The recommendations for all HIV women is to have two paps in the first year (6 months apart), and if both of those are normal, then move along to having paps performed annually. When I find women who need to be updated on their services, I call them and remind them of their appointment and offer to have our Women’s Health Practitioner see them while they are at the clinic for their convenience.  For many of these women, transportation can be an issue, and it is important for me to encourage them to get their paps while they are at the clinic. That is the very basics of what I’ve been doing!

At this point, the majority of the women I have been able to speak with have been incredibly wonderful!  The majority of them when I call seem genuinely grateful that there is someone who is interested in their health, and that has made me feel so good!  The most common question I’ve received from the ladies is from the ones who have had abnormal paps.  They always want to know, “Why do I have to get another one now?  I just had one six months ago!”  And this is such a good question from them.  It gives me a chance to educate them that it is important for HIV positive women to be screened more frequently when they have abnormal paps because it is so much more likely for them that an abnormality might progress to HPV which is the cause of cervical cancer in the majority of cases. 

All this said, so far, so good!  I can honestly say that I am loving the 1917 Clinic and the time that I spend there.  This project is helping to make me into a better nurse by teaching me important concepts about patient communication and also about developing caring relationships with patients—even though I only talk to them on the phone for probably under 5 minutes!  But I am growing to care for these women every week, and I am developing a passion for their cause that will never be erased.